To be clear, my job is not as a receptionist, or secretary. Answering the phone is nowhere in my job description. But I'm an editor at a small publishing company, and because we are small, we don't have a receptionist. We take turns answering the phone (or really, I just let the phone ring twice and if no one else has picked up by then, I begrudgingly do it myself).
Last week, I was packing up my stuff to leave for the day. My boss and one other coworker and I were all talking and laughing as I packed up my computer. My boss was preparing to take a dolly full of books out to his car, and the phone rang. I had no choice but to answer."Hello?"
"Hi, this is Guy on the Phone, is Boss there?"
As the guy on the phone was asking me this, my boss was trying to talk to me. "Is it for me?" I nodded to him while trying to listen to the guy on the phone.
"Yes he is."
Awkward pause. See, I'm used to people saying, "May I speak to Boss?" And then I say "May I ask who's calling?" And they tell me their name, and I say, "Let me see if he's available." But this guy had asked a different question, and he asked it while my boss was talking to me in the office, and it was the end of the day and I didn't want to be on the phone anyway!
Anyway, during the awkward pause I realized that the guy assumed he had said enough.
"Um...one minute, let me get him."
I put the phone on hold, and Boss asked who it was. "Um it's someone with Mainstream,...Water Valley..."
My boss, a little annoyed, asked, "Is it a man or a woman?"
"His name's Guy on the,...or Boy? Oh, it's a man. I'm sorry..."
My boss went into his office to pick up the phone as I let my head drop in disgust. I couldn't even take a phone message. And then I heard, from my boss's office across the hall,
"Ha! Well, we all take turns answering the phone around here. She's really an editor."
Ouch. The guy said something about my being a terrible receptionist. I picked up my computer and left for the day, feeling particularly dejected about my office phone skills.
The truth is, this is not just an office phone thing. I hate answering the office phone more than anything else. But I also hate talking on the phone in general. Even in my very small office, we e-mail almost everything to each other; I usually e-mail in sick instead of calling. With my friends and family, I usually text. I have no problem calling my mom, sisters, or boyfriend, but I tend to text first, unless I'm driving or in some other situation where calling is necessary.
I'm not sure why I hate talking on the phone so much. I always feel awkward, even when talking to friends. I did read once that introverts tend to like written communication better. I definitely like being able to think, write, delete, reword, look over, and then send. The truth is, I don't respond well quickly. I like to take what people say, think about it, and then respond. This does not work well for phone conversation, when the person I'm speaking to can't see that I'm trying to process and form a response.
I have one friend, a great friend, who is very smart and loves to argue. Even if he's playing devil's advocate, he just wants to argue one side of an issue and see what you come up with. I have actual anxiety about talking to him because I know that I won't come up with responses quickly. I am not intimidated by his intelligence; he is smarter than I am, but I know that I can answer his questions with thoughtful responses. I just can't answer them quickly. (Also, he is one person who has been on the receiving end of a library lie for avoiding his call.)
This is why I hate talking on the phone. This is why I'll never be good at it.
So, please, if you want to talk, just shoot me an email. Or a text. Or a Facebook message. Or a tweet, even. Just please don't call me.
And please, please, don't call my office.
You should have lived during the romantic, letter writing era.
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